Global water cycle off balance for ‘first time in human history,’ threatening half the planet’s food production

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/16/climate/global-water-cycle-off-balance-food-production/index.html

11 Comments

  1. I agree with what I’ve read of their conclusions, but the way they presented them reads like a propaganda piece, which annoys me. Been watching this climate problem since I first learned of it back in the 1980s. Doesn’t sound like they’ve learned anything new or have any sort of a plan.

  2. unfinishedtoast3 on

    I mean, the title is just wildly incorrect.

    The water cycle has been disrupted and altered hundreds of times in human history, sometimes even caused by humans.

    [25 years ago, scientists at Oxford University did an entire 10 year study on it](https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/50/9/753/269247)

    The industrial revolution would be the last major event. We were literally using so much water, we could chart the changes by observing droughts in the Southern Hemisphere caused by Europe’s spreading Industrial Revolution.

    The 1930s and the New Deal saw the government create thousands of miles of paved roads, dams and hydroelectric power. The changes to the regional water cycle in places like the Pacific Northwest alter the flow of thousands of miles of river, created reservoirs that otherwise would exist, etc. Those actions directly effected the seasonal flow patterns of water run off, causing all sorts of issues with fish, water tables, and forest habitat.

  3. RecentMushroom6232 on

    Why we are fighting conventional wars and significantly exacerbating this issue just enrages me. Everything Russia is doing is just rage- bait for me, but especially on this issue.

  4. Didn’t the Green Revolution permanently throw Earth’s natural water patterns off-balance as a necessity against unstoppable population growth in the 60s and 70s?

  5. Interesting — according to the EPA, the average American FAMILY (not individual) uses over 300 gallons per day. Where in the world is this group getting that each individual needs 1000 gallons a day for a “dignified life”?

    Follow the money. If you can scare people enough about something, and put a deadline far enough away that no one can really call you on it but close enough to sound scary (like, say, 2050), you can get people and governments to start throwing massive amounts of money at a “crisis”.

  6. Good. At what point will your average person start saying “speed up the climate disaster”. Instead of protesting climate change just speed it up faster than any corporation could.

  7. after this article and the one about North Korea joining the war in Ukraine I think I need to take a short break from reddit lol